Are you having trouble with unwanted behavior from your dog? Is training not going as smoothly as you had hoped? Maybe you’re rewarding your dog for undesired behaviors without even realizing it.
You may think of a reward as something like a treat or a scratch behind the ears, but dogs can see a wide variety of things as a reward, such as getting on the furniture, getting attention, getting to play with you or another dog, going outside, or being fed.
Without thinking about it, you may be rewarding bad behaviors and encouraging your dog to act crazy for the things he likes.
Once you step back and start to think about all the ways you might accidentally be rewarding your dog for undesirable behavior, you can start to see the places where you need to change your behavior to train your dog better.
To bring out the best behaviors in your dog, you need to think more carefully about when, how, and why you are rewarding your dog. Since dogs tend to generalize behavior, they will eventually learn that calmness brings them rewards more quickly than crazy behavior.
Before rewarding your dog in any way, you should make sure that all three of the following conditions are being met.
#1 – Is your dog calm?
It’s natural for your dog to be excited about going for a walk or being fed, but rewarding your dog with a walk or dinner while he’s bouncing around like crazy just reinforces that behavior, and your dog learns that good things happen when he jumps on you.
You may not mind your dog jumping on you, but other people may not be so happy about having your dog jump on them. To avoid having to yank your dog away from dinner guests or strangers on walks, you need to reinforce calmness.
Ask your dog to sit and wait for him to settle before rewarding him with a walk, dinner, or whatever he usually gets excited about.
Once he realizes that acting crazy delays his access to the thing he wants and being calm speeds up that process, he will respond to exciting stimuli with calmness rather than excitability.
#2 – Was the behavior your idea?
You may think that giving your dog a treat for laying quietly on his dog bed would be a good way to reinforce that you like him to be there, but if you haven’t told him to lay down there, he won’t make the connection between him laying down and it being a behavior you want to see more of.
Your dog should understand that rewards don’t come for no reason – he needs to do something to earn those rewards, and it’s your job to make sure your dog understands what it is he needs to do to get the thing he wants.
#3 – Do you like this behavior?
Do you let your dog outside every time he barks at a squirrel? Do you bribe him with a treat to get out of the kitchen when you’re cooking? Does your dog start jumping around every time you get ready to go for a walk?
If so, then you’re teaching him that barking, getting in your way, or jumping up on you gives him things that you want.
Reshape these behaviors by waiting until he’s calm before letting him into the yard, asking him to do a sit-stay outside the kitchen before you even start cooking, and making him sit and calm down before taking him out for a walk.
By making sure these conditions are all met before rewarding your dog, you’re training your dog exactly what you expect of him.
